InsaneJournal

It was both very strange and unsettlingly familiar, being back in her parents’ home. Although Marcie’s old bedroom had been converted into a craft room years ago, being back in it, sleeping in it, looking up at the same ceiling and seeing the light fall across it in the way it always had, was just… It was like New York had never existed, sometimes. It was like she’d never left. Well, except for the sewing machine and the large cubby shelves full of boxes of fabric and embroidery thread…

Last time she’d slept in this bed, she had had someone on the other end of the phone to remind her that she didn’t belong here. She had had Tragos’ voice to get herself off to. She sat on the end of the bed and looked out of the window, down across the back lawn where her father was lording over the barbeque and her mother was laying out the food on the table, and the neighbours were starting to wander in with boxes of beers and cheerful greetings. It was the 4th of July, most patriotic of holidays, and far too many people wore flag-printed merch. She’d restricted herself to a red sleeveless cotton blouse and blue jeans. That was as thematic as she was willing to get.

She heard a noise across the hall, and turned her head. Kaden was in his borrowed bedroom still. Her fifteen year old brother Adrian was sleeping in a bunk bed with thirteen-year old Leonardo for the summer, both heavily bribed with the promise of a brand new iPad each if they didn’t kick up a fuss. It didn’t stop them whinging, but Celeste had laid down the law that under no circumstances would they make Kaden feel at all unwelcome.

Adrian’s bedroom looked out onto the street, which Marcie thought Kaden preferred. She figured he’d like to be able to see comings and goings more than the view of the back of the house on the other side of the block, separated from their property only by a waist-high chain-link fence and a few sun-baked shrubs. The other house had a pool though, and Marcie sometimes looked at it quite longingly, but she wasn’t about to go and make friends with the neighbourhood just yet.

Kaden hadn’t really let slip much about how he was feeling yet. They’d been there two days, and he’d been both silent and loud in different measures, but equally as withdrawn when she tried to talk to him. He was just a brick wall, letting nothing out that he didn’t want her to see. Marcie wanted to grab harder for him, try and pull the words from him, but she knew it wouldn’t work that way. Yesterday they’d walked to the store together, and he’d shoplifted a chocolate bar from right under the shop assistant’s nose. She’d been so mad at him for it, but when he offered half of it to her on the walk back, she’d still taken it.

This place… it was closing her up to. She doing feel herself reverting to the way she’d been before she left, cold and aloof and self-sufficient. She wanted to open up to her mother, but it was so hard to talk about death and her struggles to connect with Kaden when Celeste was just so fucking happy to have them both in her house. It was easier to go out to the garage where her father Marco was fiddling about with the car, and spend time in quiet companionship like they used to do. When Celeste had greeted them at the airport, she’d actually cried a bit to see her daughter safe and sound, and had given Kaden a big hug too, telling him he was absolutely welcome with them. The two of them had had to sit in the back of the car and listen to Celeste and Marco bicker over the radio station and whether or not Marco could’ve done it in half the time in his hotrod (which was a moot point because the thing currently had two wheels off and definitely not enough trunk space for all Marcie’s suitcases.) This was normal for Marcie, but she was frequently visually checking on Kaden to see how he was taking it. He spent most of the ride staring out of the window.

Marcie got up from the bed and went to Kaden’s bedroom door, and knocked softly. “Kay? Are you gonna come down with me?” she asked. She heard a quick shuffling sound, and then silence. “Kaden?”

Guess not. She sighed and turned away to head down the stairs, slipping her phone into her back pocket. There were quite a few people milling about now. Some music was playing, a country folksy sound that Marcie kind of hated but her mother loved.

“Marcie-mouse!” Celeste called across the kitchen on seeing her daughter appear, and Marcie cringed inwardly. Wasn’t she almost twenty-five? Too old for childish nicknames. But her mother bustled over and slung an arm around her daughter’s shoulders to steer her over to the kitchen. “Do you like the music? A collab with Blake Shelton and Chord Rhapsody, do you know ’im?” Marcie barely had time to shake her head before a jolly lady in a platinum blonde up-do bustled over.

“Is this Miss Marcella? Oh my you have grown! Look at you! Quite the lady, Celeste, you must be so proud.”

“You remember Selma Carchock? She used to babysit you when the boys were small, and teach you piano.” Celeste and Selma shared an expression of two women in sync with each other. Marcie remembered Mrs Carchock, yes, and her house that stank of rose fragrance. She gave her a tight smile.

“Happy Fourth of July,” she said, a touch stiffly. Selma chucked and patted her cheek.

Celeste pressed a bowl of coleslaw into Marcie’s hands. “Do me a favour and take this outside? And ask your father how far away the steak is. And don’t let him tell you “as far as here to the door”!” she said, with an affectionate eye-roll.

Marcie backed away, thankful for the excuse to leave. This was what she had dreaded, being pawed at by every old friend of her parents’. She kept greetings to a polite smile and a nod as she passed people on her way to the table, and once the bowl was delivered, made a bee-line for Marco.

Marco, lord of the grill, was chatting about cars to another, younger man. She could tell he was talking about cars because of the enthusiastic way he waved his tongs around.

“Dad, Mom wants to know how long until the steak is done,” she said, coming to a stop next to him. Marco turned to her with a smile.

“This one knows a thing or two about cars,” he said to his companion. “My girl Marcella. This is Ca-harl, he’s the only man I trust with my wheels!”

Marcie looked at the man for the first time, and realised, now that she thought about it and was no longer in New York, that he was practically the only guy here who wasn’t white, and the smile she gave him was a bit more genuine. “Marcie,” she said with a nod. “Hi.”